Was reading old article about the arrests of the corrupt Saudi Princes and discovered that there was a cable in Wikileaks about the wealth of Saudi’s royalty.

> “WikiLeaks cables have detailed the huge monthly stipends that every Saudi royal receives as well as various money-making schemes some have used to finance lavish lifestyles.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-princes-arrested-latest-anti-corruption-purge-money-laundering-bribery-extortion-a8039496.html

Also, this

> The November 1996 cable — entitled “Saudi Royal Wealth: Where do they get all that money?” — provides an extraordinarily detailed picture of how the royal patronage system works. It’s the sort of overview that would have been useful required reading for years in the U.S. State department.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/wikileaks-saudi-royal-wel_n_829097.html

here is the wiki link to cable https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/96RIYADH4784_a.html

The Huffington post article has a good summary of the cable. I found the following of interest because it shows how few of the royal family are actually ‘businessmen’, how most of their money and businesses are outside SA, and how they have a large influx of foreigners into SA. I think all three of these are connected to human trafficking. The kids are brought in as workers, legally.

>The confiscation of land extends to businesses as well, the cable notes. A prominent and wealthy Saudi businessman told the embassy that one reason rich Saudis keep so much money outside the country was to lessen the risk of ‘royal expropriation.’”

>Finally, royals kept the money flowing by sponsoring the residence permits of foreign workers and then requiring them to pay a monthly “fee” of between $30 and $150. “It is common for a prince to sponsor a hundred or more foreigners,” the 1996 cable says.

>BIG SPENDERS

>The U.S. diplomats behind the cable note wryly that despite all the money that has been given to Saudi royals over the years there is not “a significant number of super-rich princes … In the end,” the cable states, Saudi’s “royals still seem more adept at squandering than accumulating wealth.”

In current news, this article shows how since MbS took control, the number of what the wikileaks cable calls expatriates are in DECLINE.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-09/expatriate-workers-are-leaving-saudi-arabia-in-droves